Mason Bees and Phragmites tubes for sale – Page 15 – Personal. observations by G Fletcher and purchase information for mason bees and Phragmites tubes for their culture

Vegetation in April at Tower Point

I made a trip over to Tower Point today just less than a kilometre north of the farm and took a few pictures of the vegetation along the shoreline. Thought it would be useful for the Phenology topic

Lessons learned!

That’s right … not a good idea to try to

mow the grass when it’s raining…

Phenology Native Plants in bloom in early April, 2015

Phenology ( Greek φαίνω (phainō), “to show, to bring to light, make to appear” + λόγος (logos), amongst others “study, discourse, reasoning”.

Periodic plant and animal life cycle events are influenced by climate and habitat. Phenology is often the dates of first occurrence of biological events in the annual cycles.

In Metchosin, we are never really without a month when some plant is not blooming, and the Robins and crows don’t really fly south. Unless otherwise noted, all images are from our farm in Metchosin.

Indian Plum(Oemieria cerasiformis)already has berries. It blooms in February.

Fawn Lily( Erythronium oregonum)near the front of the property.

Erythronium through the fence and out into the ditch

Fixing the front path

Today I made a path extension at the West side of the house using large rocks dug up on the property . placement of a 100kg rock with a backhoe is tricky!

Couldn’t possibly have placed this one by hand!

Trying to position this large rock so only the flat side was flush with the ground–

Native plants in bloom March 25- 2015

Another in my series of native plants phenology. These are all found on the farm

The White fawn Lily *Erythronium oregonum ssp. oregonum*

I have two portions of the sheep fields fenced off for preserving this native plant and Camas which blooms in early May

This patch started out as a small patch under shrubery which gave it protection from grazing.

The flowering red currant, *Ribes sanguineaum var. sanguineum* easily propagated from cuttings.

This currant blooms early and was the frst source of nectar for the rufous hummingbirds migrating north.

Independent Journalism-now needed more than ever.

Recently I contributed to the support
of the Tyee, an on-line newspaper
https://support.thetyee.ca/

In my work as an intervenor for the Board of the Friends of Ecological Reserves on the Kinder Morgan /TMX Pipeline Hearings Process, I have found the Tyee to be the only news outlet with regular reports on what is really going on with the National Energy Board .

I found these quotes particularly appropriate in the article : Bill C-51 Reveals Harper’s Inner Bully–The need to ramp up civic literacy is ‘critical.‘ By Murray Dobbin, 20 Mar 2015: Continue reading Independent Journalism-now needed more than ever.

Pacific Chorus Tree Frog audio

The audio in the clip below starts as I am walking in our house toward the front door in March. As I open the door, with the pond a few metres from the house, this is the sound we get every night for several months in the spring. Click on the small arrow below.

Pacific chorus frog or pacific tree frog, (Hyla regilla)in a flower bed near our house. — Pacific chorus frog or pacific tree frog, *(Hyla regilla)*in a flower bed near our house.

Turning the Compost Pile

Last fall, several truck-loads of seaweed, Garry Oak leaves, a pile of chipped wood from the orchard and farm, and a load of rotted manure were piled and mixed for composting. The tractor has been invaluable in keeping this pile turned and now in transporting it to the gardens. In March, visitor Jochen Kumm practises his skills with the backhoe and bucket .

Digging a trench for buried cable

I had been working on getting basic electrification in the barn so since the ground was soft, I decided to do the last leg to the house. Then I decided to run a water line up from the standpipe at the house to behind the rock wall at the picnic table area… Looks like a moat, but will get it filled in this week.

Recent Projects: January 2015.

March 2015:

We just received our feedback to our motion to compel Kinder Morgan /TMX to answer our Round 2 Intervenor Questions more specifically. Their response 28 out of 31 questions were responded to with the same quote:”In accordance with Board Ruling No. 33 (Filing IDA63066), Trans Mountain’s response provided sufficient information and detail for the Board in its consideration of the application and no further response is required.”

Our cover letter stated we thought they addressed our questions and listed those.

Adequate Responses	Inadequate responses
4, 5, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18,21, 23, 25, 26	1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32.
11 acceptable responses	18 did not answer the question.

So which of our acceptable answers got the No further response is required comments too?. We did not ask for one… looks like someone didn’t read the question!

See their response here

January 2015:

Several Years ago, I undertook to convert the racerocks.com website and the metchosinmarine.ca website to a WordPress centrally managed system ( CMS). This is an ongoing process since I had established an archive of thousands of images and files on the Race Rocks site which I have been running since 1999. In the last few months I have been changing the files of the Race Rocks Taxonomy and Image Gallery ( and adding new ones) Since there are over 400 files , this takes a while!
In my daily walk with Ginger on Taylor Beach, I have been able to add some updates on the winter bird population as well as a few other species and events on the metchosinmarine.ca website.
I have been working with Mike Fenger , chairman of the Board of Friends of Ecological Reserves in the production of our second round set of Information Requests to the Trans Mountain/Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion Project. The deadline was January 16. We now await the answers.

See Oil Spill Risks for our area on three websites :

December, 2014

Boreal Owl at Race Rocks. Photo by Alex Fletcher

As we have done for many years, this year again we took part in the Christmas Bird Count at Race Rocks on December 28. Val George, an experienced birder spent the morning out there and in the process came up with the rarest find of the Sooke Area bird count, A Boreal Owl.